Han Suyin, Author of ‘A Many-Splendored Thing,’ Dies at 95

Elizabeth Comber, who wrote the book that inspired the movie “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” died in Switzerland on Friday.

Dr. Comber, 95 years old, was born in China and wrote under the pen name Han Suyin, mostly on the country’s tumultuous changes in the 20th century. Her 1952 novel, “A Many-Splendored Thing,” was based on her romantic relationship with British war correspondent Ian Morrison while the two were living in Hong Kong. The book was made into the 1955 Hollywood movie “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones.

Born in Henan province to a Chinese father and a Belgian mother in 1917, she worked as a nurse during the Japanese occupation of China and studied medicine in Bejiing, Brussels and London, where she qualified as a physician.

In 1938, she married Dang Baoyang, a military officer who fought on the side of China’s Nationalist Party and died during the Chinese civil war. In 1952, she married British intelligence officer Leon Comber and became a British citizen. The couple divorced in 1959, and she later married Indian colonel Vincent Ratnaswamy, with whom she settled in Switzerland. He died in 2003.